Now that the dust has begun to settle following a turbulent 18 months for the Middle East financial sector, during which too many people were chasing too few positions following a raft of redundancies, jobs are starting to emerge again.

It is, of course, too early to suggest that we’re out of the woods yet. Decision-making for signing off new headcount has slowed in the region, with those firms that are hiring searching for candidates who exactly match their requirements.

By and large, this is people who have true expat experience – a combination of working in growth economies as well as mature markets. BRIC and frontier markets experience has also come to the fore when it comes to preference on experience.

There is a lot of replacement hiring currently, and an ongoing push to bring key revenue generators onboard, which is creating a lot of market churn.

The main areas of activity

The busiest areas in recent months have been within private wealth management, asset management and private equity, with a lot of firms expanding their teams based in the UAE as well as the key markets of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Kuwait and Bahrain are much quieter, however.

Within the wealth management sector, there’s been a renewed emphasis for firms to place people in the target markets in order to service the many family offices and HNWI’s there. This means that hiring outside of the UAE has really picked up; and a steady supply of new entrants into the region suggests this will not change in the near future.

Buy-side firms have continued to hire throughout this period for a number of reasons; a lot of new funds are capital raising for their first fund, established players are raising additional new funds to either cover distressed assets which may become available, or to enter new markets with a solid pocket of cash.

Typically the most attractive candidates are those with a solid track record in the region, actual time on the ground, a book of clients who they can entice across from old employers. Arabic has become a key requisite in landing a senior position.

When firms look to hire senior bankers, portfolio managers and sales people, there’s a common misconception that there are still more candidates than roles. The truth of the matter is that the pool of relevant candidates is still as small as it has always been, and with a large contingent of bankers deserting the region for Asia or a return to Western markets, this pool has further shrunk.

A shifting recruitment process

This has meant that the recruitment process has also changed. Candidates looking to transition into a new post typically rely on networking within the financial community, or look to employ the services of headhunters to get their profile noticed.

On the other side of the fence, employers are increasingly relying on a referral based network to identify the best people. Ironically, despite the proliferation of redundancies in recent years, banks typically look towards key people currently employed and search firms mandated for these roles usually have to rely on headhunting directly.

Of course, in the Middle East (where networking is key) it’s also about who you know. Getting endorsed by ex-colleagues is one of the most effective ways of getting noticed.

Ally Ho is head of financial services, Middle East & Africa at executive search firm Pederson & Partners